好英语网乌克兰战争发展至此，美国难辞其咎
In the Paris daily Le Figaro this month, Henri Guaino, a top adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy when he was president of France, warned that Europe’s countries, under the shortsighted leadership of the United States, were “sleepwalking” into war with Russia. Mr. Guaino was borrowing a metaphor that the historian Christopher Clark used to describe the origins of World War I.
本月，曾在萨科齐担任法国总统期间任其首席顾问的亨利·盖伊诺在巴黎每日发行的《费加罗报》上警告称，在目光短浅的美国带领下，欧洲国家正在“梦游”般走入与俄罗斯的战争。盖伊诺的这一比喻借用了历史学家克里斯托弗·克拉克对“一战”起源的描述。
Naturally, Mr. Guaino understands that Russia is most directly to blame for the present conflict in Ukraine. It was Russia that massed its troops on the frontier last fall and winter and — having demanded from NATO a number of Ukraine-related security guarantees that NATO rejected — began the shelling and killing on Feb. 24.
盖伊诺自然明白，俄罗斯是目前乌克兰冲突的罪魁祸首。去年秋冬，正是俄罗斯在边境集结了军队，并在要北约提供一系列与乌克兰相关的安全保障遭到拒绝后，于今年2月24日开始了炮击和杀戮。
3月，乌军奥丁分队的士兵——其中还有一些外国人——在伊尔平市查看一辆被摧毁的俄军坦克。
But the United States has helped turn this tragic, local and ambiguous conflict into a potential world conflagration. By misunderstanding the war’s logic, Mr. Guaino argues, the West, led by the Biden administration, is giving the conflict a momentum that may be impossible to stop.
然而，是美国让这场悲剧性的、局部的、同时也形势模糊的冲突演变成了一场潜在的世界大战。盖伊诺认为，以拜登政府为首的西方国家误解了战争的逻辑，给这场冲突注入了无法抑制的动力。
He is right.
他没有说错。
In 2014 the United States backed an uprising — in its final stages a violent uprising — against the legitimately elected Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych, which was pro-Russian. (The corruption of Mr. Yanukovych’s government has been much adduced by the rebellion’s defenders, but corruption is a perennial Ukrainian problem, even today.) Russia, in turn, annexed Crimea, a historically Russian-speaking part of Ukraine that since the 18th century had been home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
2014年，美国支持了一场在最后阶段演变为暴力的民变，反对亲俄的合法民选总统维克托·亚努科维奇。（为这次民变辩护的人一直控诉亚努科维奇政府的腐败，但腐败是乌克兰长期存在的问题，甚至在今天也是如此。）结果，俄罗斯吞并了克里米亚，这一地区属于乌克兰，历史上一直说俄语，从18世纪开始就是俄罗斯黑海舰队的驻地。
One can argue about Russian claims to Crimea, but Russians take them seriously. Hundreds of thousands of Russian and Soviet fighters died defending the Crimean city of Sevastopol from European forces during two sieges — one during the Crimean War and one during World War II. In recent years, Russian control of Crimea has seemed to provide a stable regional arrangement: Russia’s European neighbors, at least, have let sleeping dogs lie.
俄罗斯对克里米亚的领土主张确实有争议，但这件事对他们来说非同小可。在克里米亚战争及“二战”期间两次被欧洲军队围困的战役中，数以十万计的俄罗斯和苏联战士为保卫克里米亚的塞瓦斯托波尔市而牺牲。近年来，俄罗斯对克里米亚的控制似乎提供了一种稳定地区局势的办法：至少，俄罗斯的欧洲邻国没再自找麻烦。
But the United States never accepted the arrangement. On Nov. 10, 2021, the United States and Ukraine signed a “charter on strategic partnership” that called for Ukraine to join NATO, condemned “ongoing Russian aggression” and affirmed an “unwavering commitment” to the reintegration of Crimea into Ukraine.
但美国始终没有接受这一办法。2021年11月10日，美国与乌克兰签署了“战略合作伙伴宪章”，呼吁让乌克兰加入北约，谴责了“俄罗斯仍在进行的侵犯”，并重申了对克里米亚重新归属乌克兰的“坚定承诺”。
That charter “convinced Russia that it must attack or be attacked,” Mr. Guaino wrote. “It is the ineluctable process of 1914 in all its terrifying purity.”
这一宪章“让俄罗斯坚信，不出兵就会被出兵，”盖伊诺写道。“这将不可避免地导致1914年的历史以最纯粹的方式重演，令人不寒而栗。”
This is a faithful account of the war that President Vladimir Putin has claimed to be fighting. “There were constant supplies of the most modern military equipment,” Mr. Putin said at Russia’s annual Victory Parade on May 9, referring to the foreign arming of Ukraine. “The danger was growing every day.”
盖伊诺的形容完全符合普京总统对于他要打的战争的描述。“最现代的军事装备在源源不断地运入，”普京在5月9日的俄罗斯胜利日年度阅兵式上说道，他指的是外国势力对乌克兰的武装。“危险与日俱增。”
Whether he was right to worry about Russia’s security depends on one’s perspective. Western news reports tend to belittle him.
至于他对俄罗斯安全的担忧是否合理，立场不同，答案也不同。西方新闻报道倾向于贬低他。
The rocky course of the war in Ukraine thus far has vindicated Mr. Putin’s diagnosis, if not his conduct. Though Ukraine’s military industry was important in Soviet times, by 2014 the country barely had a modern military at all. Oligarchs, not the state, armed and funded some of the militias sent to fight Russian-supported separatists in the east. The United States started arming and training Ukraine’s military, hesitantly at first under President Barack Obama. Modern hardware began flowing during the Trump administration, though, and today the country is armed to the teeth.
从目前来看，乌克兰战争的艰难进程证明了普京的判断——可能还有他的行动——是正确的。虽然乌克兰的军事产业在苏联时期举足轻重，但到2014年，这个国家基本没有现代化的军队。为一些民兵提供武器和资金，对抗东部俄罗斯支持的分裂分子的是寡头，而非国家。美国起初是在奥巴马政府时期武装和训练乌军。但现代化装备在特朗普政府时期开始流入，如今，这个国家已经武装到牙齿。
Since 2018, Ukraine has received U.S.-built Javelin antitank missiles, Czech artillery and Turkish Bayraktar drones and other NATO-interoperable weaponry. The United States and Canada have lately sent up-to-date British-designed M777 howitzers that fire GPS-guided Excalibur shells. President Biden just signed into law a $40 billion military aid package.
自2018年以来，乌克兰获得了美国制造的标枪反坦克飞弹、捷克的火炮、土耳其的拜卡“旗手”无人机以及其他与北约操作互通的武器。最近，美加两国又送去了英国最新的M777榴弹炮，可发射GPS制导的“神剑”炮弹。拜登总统刚刚签署了一项400亿美元的军事援助计划。
In this light, mockery of Russia’s battlefield performance is misplaced. Russia is not being stymied by a plucky agricultural country a third its size; it is holding its own, at least for now, against NATO’s advanced economic, cyber and battlefield weapons.
有鉴于此，对俄军战场表现的嘲讽是不明就里的。让俄罗斯裹足不前的，并不是这个幅员只有其三分之一的农业国家所拿出的勇气；面对北约先进的经济条件、网络和战场武器，俄罗斯至少现在还能稳住阵脚。
And this is where Mr. Guaino is correct to accuse the West of sleepwalking. The United States is trying to maintain the fiction that arming one’s allies is not the same thing as participating in combat.
这也是盖伊诺指责西方国家“梦游”所击中的痛点。美国还在试图维持一种假象，即向盟友提供武器和直接参与战斗不是一码事。
In the information age, this distinction is growing more and more artificial. The United States has provided intelligence used to kill Russian generals. It obtained targeting information that helped to sink the Russian Black Sea missile cruiser the Moskva, an incident in which about 40 seamen were killed.
此两者之间的差异在信息时代显得愈发虚妄。美国提供了用于击杀俄军将领的情报。其获得的目标定位信息，帮助击沉了俄罗斯在黑海的“莫斯科号”导弹巡洋舰，这一事件造成约40名海员丧生。
And the United States may be playing an even more direct role. There are thousands of foreign fighters in Ukraine. One volunteer spoke to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation this month of fighting alongside “friends” who “come from the Marines, from the States.” Just as it is easy to cross the line between being a weapons supplier and being a combatant, it is easy to cross the line from waging a proxy war to waging a secret war.
而美国可能正在起着更直接的作用。乌克兰有数千名外国武装人员。一名志愿者本月向加拿大广播公司讲述了与“来自海军陆战队，来自美国的朋友”并肩作战的事情。正如武器供应商很容易越界成为战斗人员，发动代理人战争也很容易越界变成发动秘密战争。
In a subtler way, a country trying to fight such a war risks being drawn from partial into full involvement by force of moral reasoning. Perhaps American officials justify exporting weaponry the way they justify budgeting it: It is so powerful that it is dissuasive. The money is well spent because it buys peace. Should bigger guns fail to dissuade, however, they lead to bigger wars.
试图打这样一场战争的国家，有可能在道义理由的驱使下，以一种微妙的方式从部分参与变成全面参与。也许在美国官员看来，出口武器和拨发经费是出于同样的考虑：这些东西是如此强大，以至于具有吓阻作用。这笔钱花得值，因为它可以买到和平。然而，一旦更大的武器无法吓阻，反而会导致更大的战争。
A handful of people died in the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014. But this time around, matched in weaponry — and even outmatched in some cases — Russia has reverted to a war of bombardment that looks more like World War II.
2014年俄罗斯接管克里米亚过程中只死了几个人。但这一次，面对武器装备相当——在某些情况下甚至有优势——的对手，俄罗斯重新开始打起更像二战的轰炸战。
Even if we don’t accept Mr. Putin’s claim that America’s arming of Ukraine is the reason the war happened in the first place, it is certainly the reason the war has taken the kinetic, explosive, deadly form it has. Our role in this is not passive or incidental. We have given Ukrainians cause to believe they can prevail in a war of escalation.
普京认为战争发生的首要原因是美国武装乌克兰，即使我们不接受这一说法，但这肯定是战争变得如此激烈、狂暴和致命的原因。我们在这方面的作用不是被动的或偶然的。我们让乌克兰人有理由相信他们可以在一场升级战争中获胜。
Thousands of Ukrainians have died who likely would not have if the United States had stood aside. That naturally may create among American policymakers a sense of moral and political obligation — to stay the course, to escalate the conflict, to match any excess.
成千上万的乌克兰人已经丧生，如果美国没有插手，他们可能不会死。这自然会在美国政策制定者中产生一种道德和政治责任感——坚持到底，升级冲突，对任何过度行为做出同等回应。
The United States has shown itself not just liable to escalate but also inclined to. In March, Mr. Biden invoked God before insisting that Mr. Putin “cannot remain in power.” In April, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained that the United States seeks to “see Russia weakened.”
美国已经表明自己不仅有义务升级，而且还倾向于升级。3月，拜登在坚称普京“不能继续掌权”的时候还摆出了“上帝”的名头。4月，国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀解释说，美国希望“看到俄罗斯被削弱”。
Noam Chomsky warned against the paradoxical incentives of such “heroic pronouncements” in an April interview. “It may feel like Winston Churchill impersonations, very exciting,” he said. “But what they translate into is: Destroy Ukraine.”
诺姆·乔姆斯基在4月的一次采访中对这种“勇武宣言”的自相矛盾的动机发出了警告。“这可能感觉就像在模仿温斯顿·丘吉尔，非常令人兴奋，”他说。“但他们的意思是：摧毁乌克兰。”
For similar reasons Mr. Biden’s suggestion that Mr. Putin be tried for war crimes is an act of consummate irresponsibility. The charge is so serious that, once leveled, it discourages restraint; after all, a leader who commits one atrocity is no less a war criminal than one who commits a thousand. The effect, intended or not, is to foreclose any recourse to peace negotiations.
出于类似的原因，拜登表示普京应该因战争罪受审是一种完全不负责任的行为。这一指控太过严重，对方一旦做出同等回应，就会不利于克制；毕竟，犯下一项暴行的领导人与犯下一千项暴行的领导人一样，都是战犯。其效果，无论是有心还是无意，都是在阻断通往和平谈判的通道。
The situation on the battlefield in Ukraine has evolved to an awkward stage. Both Russia and Ukraine have suffered heavy losses. But each has made gains, too. Russia has a land bridge to Crimea and control of some of Ukraine’s most fertile agricultural lands and energy deposits, and in recent days has held the battlefield momentum. Ukraine, after a robust defense of its cities, can expect further NATO support, know-how and weaponry — a powerful incentive not to end the war anytime soon.
乌克兰战场上的局势已经发展到一个尴尬的阶段。俄罗斯和乌克兰都损失惨重。但双方也都取得了收益。俄罗斯拥有通往克里米亚的陆桥，控制着乌克兰一些最肥沃的农田和能源矿藏，最近几天一直保持着战场势头。乌克兰在对其城市进行了强有力的防御之后，可以期待得到北约的进一步支持、技术和武器——这是一个将战争继续持续下去的强大动力。
But if the war does not end soon, its dangers will increase. “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months,” the former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned last week, “before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome.” Calling for a return to the status quo ante bellum, he added, “Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine but a new war against Russia itself.”
但如果战争不尽快结束，它的危险就会增加。“谈判需要在接下来的两个月内开始，”美国前国务卿亨利·基辛格上周警告说，“在它造成难以解决的动荡和紧张局势之前。”他呼吁恢复战前的状态，并补充说，“持续到那个节点之后的战争将不是为乌克兰的自由而战，而是一场针对俄罗斯本身的新战争。”
In this, Mr. Kissinger is on the same page as Mr. Guaino. “To make concessions to Russia would be submitting to aggression,” Mr. Guaino warned. “To make none would be submitting to insanity.”
在这方面，基辛格与盖伊诺意见一致。“对俄罗斯做出让步就是屈服于侵略，”盖伊诺警告说。“对一切都不让步将是屈服于疯狂。”
The United States is making no concessions. That would be to lose face. There’s an election coming. So the administration is closing off avenues of negotiation and working to intensify the war. We’re in it to win it. With time, the huge import of deadly weaponry, including that from the newly authorized $40 billion allocation, could take the war to a different level. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine warned in an address to students this month that the bloodiest days of the war were coming.
美国没有做出任何让步。那样做会颜面尽失。毕竟快要选举了。因此，政府正在关闭谈判通道并努力加剧战争。我们是奔着赢下战争去的。随着时间的推移，致命武器的大量进口，包括新授权的400亿美元拨款，可能会将战争推向一个不同的水平。乌克兰总统泽连斯基本月在对学生的讲话中警告说，战争最血腥的日子即将到来。